Price: $4.99
Serving: 1 souffle, 2.6oz
Souffles per package: 2
Calories: 270 per serving
 Calories from Fat: 140
Fat: 25%, 16g
 Saturated Fat: 50%, 10g
 Trans Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 28%, 85mg
Sodium: 3%, 80mg
Protein: 4g
Carbohydrates: 9, 27g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 13g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 per souffle

if you need ramekins
if you don’t need ramekins

Trader Joe’s says: Do you dream of baking your own souffles for an elegant snack or dessert? Just don’t think you have the know-how? Trader Joe’s Ready to Bake Chocolate Souffles to the rescue! These fabulous, chocolate-y souffles (already in their own ceramic ramekins) go from freezer to oven without defrosting and are ready to enjoy in 20 minutes. Serve them as is, or for a dessert worth of the finest restaurant, top with freshly whipped cream and/or fresh raspberry puree. Voila! Your dreams have become a reality.

Abi says: These souffles are fantastic. Each one is pillowing and just a bit eggy (in a good way) and has enough fluff and puff to deliver intense chocolate without weighing you down. Also, each souffle is a satisfyingly rich dessert at 270 calories. PER RAMEKIN. Granted, these souffles are also half the size of the unfairly portioned Patrick David frozen chocolate souffles. But they are also more richly chocolatey. And come in classy ramekins, a state that may be a plus or a minus depending on whether or not you need tiny, tiny bowls.

When I first saw these puffy tubs of heaven at Trader Joe’s I thought “Five bucks? That’s a lot for two Trader Joe’s desserts!” Then I realized that the price included approximately 25¢ worth of Chinese ceramics, which inflated to American prices equals a couple of dollars. If you need ramekins, this is an excellent deal as they cost a buck or two each and these ones come with yet-unbaked souffles!

If you don’t need ramekins, you might buy these once just to try them and then never buy them again because unless you’re planning on opening a second-hand china shop, the world has enough ramekins. Sadly, I fall in the later camp. I adored these, but I dread piling up a cupboard full of ramekins just because I happen to enjoy chocolate souffles. Another downside to such a wonderfully elegant and fresh dessert is that these take 22 minutes to bake in a 375 degree oven. That’s a long time when you’re used to the 1 minute chocolate lava cakes.

For those uninitiated into the world of souffles, I’ll let you in on a secret: souffle liquid can be made at almost any time and then refrigerated into ramekined individual servings for later use. Not familiar with how to make souffles? Check out this terrific recipe (with plenty of photos) from Cooking for Engineers.

Okay, so the real name of this book is Cooking with All Things Trader Joe’s (the image of the book to the right will take you to the Amazon page for the book). And it uses products from Trader Joe’s (prepped vegetables, vanilla cake mix, goat cheese) to make actual, real foods. I’ve seen copies of this book at the Kepler’s in Menlo Park, CA and just about every Border’s in the Bay Area (except the Palo Alto one) lists this item at ‘Likely in Store’.

My favorite thing about this cookbook is the pictures. I do not make recipes that do not have pictures to go with them. Preferably, color pictures. And this book abounds with color pictures.

If you’d like a small taste of what’s in the book, I recommend you take a look at Deana and Wona’s blog on Amazon.com. They have several sample recipes there and you can get an idea of their writing style.

What I find most interesting are the reviews on Amazon.com. I approach Trader Joe’s as both a way to get delicious stuff (cheeses, nuts, chocolates) for low prices and as a place where I can try something new without worrying about my hard-earned cash. I’ve returned quite a few things to Trader Joe’s over the years, including bland caramels and rotgut wine. Trader Joe’s lets me experiment without worry. Unfortunately, this is not how everyone uses Trader Joe’s and it is not how folks view the cookbook. One reviewer on Amazon said:

The recipes were not “family friendly”, in other words they used unusual ingredients and I know my daughters and their families would not like a big percentage of the recipes. So I sent them back. It’s a shame that something that sounded so good was so bad.

Another caveat is that Trader Joe’s might pull one of your beloved (or needed) items, leaving you (and a recipe) in a lurch. This has happened to me with a variety of TJ’s sauces (Mole, where are you?) and drove people crazy when it happened to the gyoza.

But just about everyone else seems to like it because the thing has a four and a half star rating with 49 reviews. Or maybe people just love Trader Joe’s.

Price: $2.00
Serving: 6.25 oz.
Calories: 360 per serving
Fat: 40%, 26g
Cholesterol: 128%, 385mg
Sodium: 39%, 940mg
Protein: 16g
Carbohydrates: 5%, 15g
Fiber: 4%, 1g
Sugar: 3g
Weight Watchers Points: 9 Points

Aunt Jemima says: Scrambled Eggs with Sausage and hash brown potatoes. Real homemade taste in every heart breakfast, only from Aunt Jemima.

Nicole says: Aunt Jemima is worried about you, just like the average Italian grandmother (or so the stereotypes tell me). Mangia, mangia! You’re looking a little thin, don’t they feed you in [insert your metropolitan area]? But this really didn’t taste like 128% of my RDA cholesterol. It kind of frightens and thrills me what the stats might be on my average diner breakfast!

The eggs are first in the name and the largest part of the meal – and pretty good. I’ve never reheated scrambled eggs, but this gives me hope that they are okay for leftovers. They had the salt and pepper cooked into the scrambled, thank goodness – convenience food means not have salt and pepper shakers in your desk drawer. The eggs maintained a nice moistness, without that watery egg-pee you sometimes get from the pan version.

The sausage, which I as a pork-products-lover of epic proportions I was looking forward to, was disappointing. It did have a nice lightly spiced flavor, but there was no crispness to the skin. Shocker, eh, with that microwave? But it really was close to soggy. Note: Breakfast sausage not good micro-leftovers.

The hash brown potatoes were neither soggy not crisp, so about average, and that had a nice natural texture, a great break for the recombined and shaped mouth feel of many micro-products. Overall, the meal was definitely filling and satisfying. The eggs and hash browns impressed me. The downside of convenience food? I do wish I had syrup (for my sausage) ans ketchup (for the rest) in my desk drawer.

The video above only makes sense with sound.

Need a review? Check out the delicious Apple Pie Larabar at Snackity Snack.

Or, you can email me pictures of horrible Christmas stuff for another project I’m working on. My email address is abi@heateatreview.com and I will take any awful holiday stuff you can find.